Paying off debt, increasing savings, reducing taxes, investing for the future—with so many different money management goals to work on, it can be hard knowing where to focus your energy. MoneySense's Priority Pyramid suggests the financial milestones you should address in order of priority.

Like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and our own Lifehacker Hierarchy of Goals, this pyramid illustrates what you should tackle first (at the bottom of the pyramid) before moving up to the next level.

Making sure you're earning more than you're spending is priority number one, naturally. If you don't have a positive cash flow, you can't use your money to meet your financial goals. At the top of the pyramid are focusing on investment performance and optimizing your returns.

It's a basic illustration, but still useful for creating a plan of attack to get your finances in order.

The Priority Pyramid | MoneySense

How do you decide which tasks you tackle first on your to-do list? If you're choosing based solely on priority, your system is probably breaking down on a regular basis, according to father of GTD David Allen. Here's how to set up your list so "priority" isn't just something else on your list to ignore.

Why Hard-Coding Priority Doesn't Work

Priorities change too often to be set in stone when you add a new item to your to-do list, and inflexible priorities don't take the human element into account. But you have to arrange your to-dos in some kind of order, right?

In an interview with GTD Times, productivity guru David Allen explains that we should all stop organizing our to-do lists strictly by priority. He doesn't say you should throw the concept of priority out the window entirely, just that the way we think about it breaks down entirely too easily. Here's why:

• Organizing your to-dos by priority "codes" like "A, B, C" or "High, Medium, Low" creates an inflexible system that can't adapt.
• A "red" priority item at 8am can easily become a "green" priority item at noon—setting the priority as soon as you add an item ignores the fact that priorities change, sometimes within hours.
• Assigning priorities or flags to to-dos strictly by deadline or when you get the work completely ignores the times of day when you're most productive.
• Setting priority based entirely on deadline ignores the time required to do the work.

The crux of Allen's argument is that your priorities at 4pm are bound to be different than they were at 8am, so why should your to-do list be set in stone at 8am? If at the end of the day you're tired and want to go home, no red flag will make you ready to tackle your next big project, so why can't your to-do list reflect the times of day when you do your best work? Sure, you can move your priorities around over the course of the day, but that forces you to spend time managing your to-do list—one of the cardinal sins of productivity. You don't want to waste time organizing work rather than doing work. Photo remixed from doglikehorse.

Redefine "Priority" to Include More Variables

So what's the solution? Change the way you think about "priority." Make sure that when you organize your list, you don't just do it in terms of what you were assigned first and when it needs to be done. Instead, arrange your to-dos based on your daily schedule and your peak productivity times, in addition to when they need to be completed. Allen puts it this way:

The four criteria that you will use to decide what to do are (in order of precedence):

• Context (what can I do where I am?)
• Time (when do I have to do something else?)
• Energy (how wasted/fresh am I?)
• Priority (what has the highest payoff for me if I do it?)

So for example, you get an email from your boss at 10am to look into a server problem. The server is across the country, and poking around now will disrupt the people using it. Your boss says it's important, but you know that the server is only in use once a week. So now you have to decide when you're going to look at the issue. Photo by FuzzBones.

You can't do the work now, but if you're most productive in the evenings, you might want to tackle it later in the day, after everyone's logged off. The highest payoff for you would be to get the work done quickly, but if the server is only in use every week, so you can probably schedule the work for tomorrow, or in the evening, when you can work freely and you're energized. Had you just added the item to your to-do list with an "A" priority because it's urgent, it would sit next to all of the other "A" items and force you to re-prioritize every time you look at your to-dos. Allen's method takes more thought, but it results in a more concrete plan.

How do you prioritize your to-dos? What things do you take into account? Share your tips in the comments below.

Title photo by R/DV/RS.

No matter how much time you spend planning a project, it's inevitable that you'll run into a problem outside of your control. Before you get too deep into something, productivity blog Unclutterer recommends you set up a contingency plan for botched workdays or missed deadlines.

The idea is that you look at the most important part of your day or project and figure out what other ways you can take to accomplish that if something goes wrong. For instance, if you're going to miss a deadline, ask yourself who you need to tell and what you can do about it. The key is to make sure you have an alternate path for an important project so that if something goes wrong you don't waste time figuring out what to do. How about you, do you set up contingency plans for when a project gets derailed?

Contingency planning for botched word days and deadlines | Unclutterer

Photo remixed from Tina Lawson and Ben Watts.

You know that sinking feeling you have when there's too much on your plate? When you try to tackle your tasks by priority, but it feels like everything's important? Don't get overwhelmed—it's a problem that everyone faces at some point or another, and while it's difficult to skillfully juggle multiple priorities and competing responsibilities, it's not impossible. Here's how.

It just so happens that there's a career that focuses specifically on juggling competing tasks and priorities: These people are called project managers. And as luck would have it, I was a full time PM for many years, PMP-certified and everything. In that time, I learned a number of helpful tricks that can help you manage your workload at the office as well as your ever-growing list of to-dos at home, with your family, or with your friends. Here's how you can apply some of those techniques to your everyday life.

Photo by Josh S.

First, Answer the Question: Is Everything Really Important?

Even if everything on your plate is supposed to be equally important, you still need a way to break down which ones you spend your time on, and how you slice up your time. The first question you have to get past is whether or not everything really is of equal importance. Here are a couple of tips to help you cut through the fog and get a feel for how important your responsibilities and projects really are.

Photo by Lisa Stevens.

• Grill the boss. At work, you have a manager. At home, you're your own boss. One of the primary responsibilities of any manager is to help you understand what's important, what's not, and what you should be working on. You may have a manager at the office who does this (or needs your help doing it well), but everywhere else, you're in charge of your own work, and no one's going to tell you that backing up your data is more important right now than painting the house. It's easy to give up and think "it's all important," but at work, you can lean in and tell your boss that you really need their help. At home, sometimes you just have to pick something from your to-do list and get started to build some momentum.
• Ask around. If you're prioritizing tasks that involve other people, like your family, friends, and coworkers, talk to them. Find out from them when they need your help, how much work is backed up behind the things you're working with them on, and if they can lend a hand. If they don't need you for another week and someone else needs you tomorrow, or if they aren't as busy as you are, you know what to do.
• Work backwards. We'll get into this a little more later, but you probably have an idea of when each of your tasks are due—or at least when you'd like them done by—and how much time is required to work on each item. Start with the due dates, take into account how much effort you need to put into each one and how much input you need from others, and work backwards to find out what you should be working on right now (or what you should have already started, in some cases).
• Cover Your A**. Finally, once you've taken some time to determine what's really important and arranged them based on what you think you should tackle first, it's time to put it in writing and share it with everyone involved. Set expectations with others for when you'll get your work done for them, and set expectations with yourself for when you'll have time to work on your own projects. This is more important in a work setting, but involving others in your non-work to-dos can also keep you—and others—accountable.

Get Organized

In order for your priorities to even matter, you need to have some sort of a personal productivity system in place to which you hold yourself accountable—and in which your priorities will actually matter. If you've got a tried and true system, great. If not, check out our guide to building one that's right for you.

The goal of your system, whichever you select, is to take away the need for you to waste time deciding what to work on next, even when you have a lot on your plate. I've found that David Allen's GTD framework is one of the most effective methods for me, mostly because it focuses on what you should do now and what your next actions should be, and it emphasizes getting your to-dos out of your head and into some system that will help you work. I've mentioned before that I manage my to-dos in ReQall, but there are plenty of other options, like previously mentioned Wunderlist, or if you work on a team, Asana, a collaborative tool we adore.

Whichever tool and productivity method you choose, dump your to-dos and projects into it as quickly as possible. Make sure it's something you'll actually return to and use frequently, and something that's easy to fit into your workflow, and you'll be successful. In the end, you want something easy to refer to, easy to enter tasks into, and that gives you a great view of all of the balls you have in the air at any time.

Photo by David Chico Pham.

Behold, The Trinity: Cost, Scope, and Time

When I was a project manager, one of the first things I learned to help me judge which projects were most important or needed the most attention is the "triple constraint," or a triangle with three equilateral sides. Each side represents the cost of the project, the scope of the project, and the time required to complete the project. None of the sides can be adjusted without making changes to the other two sides. The sides you're weakest in help determine the projects that need special attention. This holds true for all things, not just projects and project managers: If someone heaps more work onto you (scope), but insists that you finish in the same amount of time (time), you'll need more resources (cost) to get the job done.

For example, if you want to paint the spare room in time for out-of-town guests to stay over, you can't change the size of the job (scope), but you can control whether you buckle down and do it yourself overnight (time), or get someone else to do it for you while you do something else (cost). Here's how you can use these three principles to organize your everyday to-dos.

Photo by Mike Truchon/Shutterstock.

• Time: Work Backwards From Your Deadlines. Time is usually the one variable most of us can't change. Deadlines are deadlines, and often we're not the ones who set them. This is where working backwards from due dates is crucial. Start a spreadsheet, and mark down when each project or task on your plate needs to be finished. Then work backwards to the present day, taking into account everything each specific to-do that needs to be done to get from here to there, and how long it takes to complete. When you're finished, you'll likely see a bunch of tasks that should have started already and others that hopefully won't start for a while if you're going to make the deadline. That list, by itself, is a good indicator of what your priorities are, what you should be working on right now, what you should work on next, and perhaps most importantly, what you should get help with—especially if they're tasks that should have started a week ago.
• Cost: Get Help from Family, Friends, and Coworkers. Cost means more than just dollars. It also means people who can help you, or services you can call to give you a hand or take the load off. Could you finish faster if someone else worked on it for you? What if a teammate could take part of the job off your hands and you could pick it up later? Perhaps there's a program or application that can automate the process for you, and it's pretty cheap. It may be worth spending money or dragging in friends to help you finish renovating the kitchen before you run out of vacation days, or calling someone to install your new washing machine so you don't have to take time off to do it.
• Scope: Don't Be Afraid to Make Compromises. If your to-dos have to be done by a certain time and you can't get help, it's time to sit down with the people waiting on you and start making some deals. Let them know what you can deliver by when, and then go on to explain what you can give them later. This is important, because it sends the message that you're not trying to avoid the work you have to do, but you're trying to give them something now that they can use while you keep working in the background to get them everything else on their wish list. The sooner you stop thinking of your to-dos in terms of all-or-nothing, the sooner you'll have the flexibility to say "I'll give you this tomorrow if you give me a week to give you the rest."

Delegate, Delegate, Delegate

It's easy for us to toil away in obscurity, quietly hating our lives and our jobs and growing more frustrated with every passing minute. All the while, there may be a friend who's willing to help if we had only asked, or a boss who would be willing to help you out if you asked the right questions or gave them the right information.

We've talked about how difficult it can be to delegate, and how to delegate effectively in the past, but however you go about it, it's important to remember that you need to be assertive, not aggressive when asking for help, and you need to make your case with all of the data you have available. By now, you should have your priorities laid out and you have a good idea what you need. Use that information to ask for help and prove you need it, and remember, don't be upset if your friends, boss, or coworkers say no.

Photo by Matthieu Plourde.

Buckle Up, It's Going to be a Bumpy Ride

Using this method to set your own priorities and keep track of your own responsibilities isn't just something you should do when you're starting to feel overwhelmed. If the walls are closing in on you, yes, it's definitely time to take a good, hard look at what's on your plate, what can come off, and what has to give, but waiting until you're already busy and stressed out will make it especially difficult to make the changes you need to get your head above water. Even so, it's essential, and once you do it you'll never look back. Hopefully, you can apply these tricks to your work, at home, and in your day-to-day life. Once you really understand what you have to work on and how long it takes, you'll be able to make smart decisions about whether you can take on that big new project at work, or help your best friend plan their bachelor party.